LITMIR.BIZ

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      “I won’t be leaving before he gets back,” she assured the old man.

      Inside Naomi’s bedroom, she quickly went to the woman’s side. After switching on the nearby lamp, she gathered her equipment together. As she wrapped a blood pressure cuff around Naomi’s arm, she was relieved to see the woman’s eyes appeared a bit more clear this morning.

      “How are you feeling, Naomi?” Bridget asked.

      Naomi gave her a faint nod and Bridget finished noting the blood pressure reading before she asked, “Do you hurt anywhere?”

      Naomi laid a hand on her chest and then slid the same hand slowly to her stomach.

      “Have you had anything to drink or eat since last night?” Bridget continued with her questions.

      “Cider. And a little goat’s milk.”

      Bridget smiled softly at the woman. “Well, that’s better than nothing. By this afternoon I want you to try to eat something, though. Will you try?”

      Naomi let out a weary sigh. “I’ll try.”

      Bridget took the woman’s temperature, then got down to the all-important job of listening to her lungs. She didn’t hear the huge improvement she would have liked, but Naomi would need much more medication before Bridget expected to see a turnaround for the better. For now, the woman’s condition hadn’t worsened overnight and for that much Bridget was very thankful.

      Once she put away her stethoscope, she explained to Naomi that she’d brought a bag of medicine for her and that she needed to fix a needle in her hand for her to receive it. Expecting the woman to put up a fuss and probably refuse the IV medications, she was pleasantly surprised when Johnny’s grandmother agreed.

      “My hide is tough, Bridget. But you can try,” she acceded.

      Not wasting any time, Bridget quickly gathered the needed paraphernalia from her bag. Thankfully, near the head of the bed, there was a hook on the wall holding Naomi’s housecoat. After removing the garment, she used it to hang the bag of medications, then went to work affixing a small shunt to the woman’s hand.

      “This might sting a little,” Bridget warned as she plucked Naomi’s hand from atop the cover. “I’ll try to be as easy as I can.”

      Starting an IV was something Bridget hadn’t done since way back in her intern days. Now that she had her own private practice, she had nurses to do such tasks for her and she couldn’t help but wish her sister Maura was here to do this one.

      But fortunately she didn’t have any trouble finding an appropriate vein or positioning the needle. However, as she smoothed the medical tape across the top of Naomi’s fragile hand, Bridget had plenty of problems with the unbidden thoughts rushing to the forefront of her mind.

      This woman hadn’t always been old, or wrinkled or ill, Bridget thought. At one time her bony hand had been plump and smooth, her face and figure full of youth. At the age of forty-three she’d given birth to her and Charlie’s only child, a daughter named Scarlett. A miracle in itself, considering they’d already passed two decades of a childless marriage.

      Five years ago, in spite of Johnny’s misgivings, Bridget had made a few visits to the Chino home. She and Naomi were very different people, but that hadn’t stopped them from taking an instant liking to each other. Naomi had talked with her about many things, one of them being Johnny’s mother. She’d told Bridget that while she’d been pregnant, she’d had a premonition and it had told her the girl child she was carrying would never truly be hers, but that someday she would receive another child and it would be a boy.

      Strangely enough, Naomi’s intuition had come true. Scarlett had grown up beautiful, but too wild to tame. As she’d entered her teenage years she’d been reckless and defiant and from there her life had quickly gone downhill. By the time she was nineteen, she’d spent a short time in jail and eventually bore a son out of wedlock.

      The responsibility of a child had been overwhelming to Scarlett and as quickly as she’d given birth, she’d handed the infant over to her parents and left the reservation and New Mexico behind. Four years later, they’d received word that she’d died in an alcohol-related car crash, making Naomi’s premonition come true. She’d lost a daughter, but a baby boy had come into her life.

      “Bridget, is something wrong?”

      Naomi’s weakly spoken question interrupted Bridget’s deep thoughts, and with a barely discernible sigh, she looked at the woman and smiled. “No. Everything is okay, Naomi. Why do you ask?”

      “The sad look on your face. Maybe you don’t think I’ll get well.”

      With a firm shake of her head, Bridget placed Naomi’s hand carefully back on the bedcover, then patted her shoulder. “I’m sorry I looked sad. I was just—thinking. About all the things I have to do today. That’s all. I promise you’re going to get well.” She stabbed the old woman with a pointed look. “You do want to get well, don’t you?”

      Naomi grimaced. “Why wouldn’t I?”

      Bridget studied her closely. “I don’t know. Some people get lazy when they get older. They get too lazy to fight for anything. I don’t want you to fall into that category.”

      The old woman tried to snort, but only managed to make herself cough. When she eventually regained her breath, she said, “I’ve fought for some things. And I won’t stop now.”

      “Good,” Bridget replied. “See that you don’t.”

      After regulating the IV drip, Bridget gave Naomi several oral medications, then urged her patient to go to sleep.

      Once the woman had closed her eyes, Bridget moved a few steps away from the bed to where Charlie sat in the same straight-back chair with a twine woven seat. The man looked tired and uncomfortable, but Bridget chose not to tell him so. He didn’t need a woman, not even a third of his age, telling him what to do and when to do it.

      “Your wife should sleep now, Mr. Chino. And let’s pray the medicines will do the trick.”

      “I pray all the time,” he said.

      Bridget didn’t doubt his simply stated fact. The Chinos had always been spiritual people, including Johnny. At least, that’s the way it had been five years ago. Whether he’d held on to his faith, she didn’t know. Through snippets of information from Brady, she knew that Johnny’d more or less turned into a recluse and had turned his back on a job that had, at one time, garnered him fame and the reputation of being one of the best trackers in the West.

      She was glancing toward the slow dripping IV, trying to mentally calculate when it might be finished, when she heard stirrings in the front part of the house. The sound of Johnny’s arrival set her heart to pounding and after only a split second of indecision, she decided to go meet him.

      By the time she reached the kitchen, he was there easing a paper sack full of groceries onto the countertop. The moment he caught the sound of her footsteps, his head turned in her direction and for a moment they simply stared at each other. Or that’s what it felt like to Bridget. Maybe she was the one doing all the staring as she took in his black, black hair, broad shoulders and long lean legs encased in worn denim.

      “Good morning,” she greeted him.

      “Good morning,” he replied.

      Forcing herself to breathe, she moved over to where he was standing and watched as he pulled out a jug of orange juice, several sports drinks, cans of condensed soup and a loaf of bread.

      “You should have told me you needed those things,” she said. “I could have brought them with me this morning.”

      “It isn’t your place to bring food.”

      She was an outsider and he wasn’t about to let her into his world. After all this time, the notion shouldn’t hurt her. But it did.

      “God forbid

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